I brace my hands against the tile and let the water beat down on my neck and shoulders, rinsing away the night. The heat loosens muscles that are still taut from the rooftop, the rifle, and the split-second decision to abort instead of fire.
Her name surfaces again.
Kate.
I tell myself she was just a complication, a variable introduced at the wrong moment. Nothing more. The thought should settle me. It usually does. Instead, the frustration sharpens, digging in deeper. At myself, at the lapse, and the fact that her presence was enough to pull my focus when nothing else ever has.
I tilt my head forward, water streaming down my face, and force my mind back into familiar territory. Procedures. Contingencies. The job. That’s where control lives.
Whatever happened last night ends here. I don’t linger, look back, or carry ghosts with me.
I stand under the shower longer than necessary, water beating down on my shoulders in a steady, punishing rhythm. Steam fills the small bathroom, fogging the mirror until my reflection dissolves into nothing more than a broad outline and shadow.
Better that way.
I drag my hands over my chest, down my ribs, feeling the familiar terrain beneath my palms. The scars are still there. They always will be. Thick ridges of damaged skin, some faded to pale lines, others darker, angrier, refusing to fully disappear no matter how much time passes.
Most of them are hidden now.
Ink stretches across my torso in deliberate patterns—black and gray, sharp lines cutting through scar tissue like a reclamation. Each tattoo was chosen carefully. Not to erase what happened, but to own it. To make sure that when I look at myself, I see something intentional instead of damage.
The water runs hot, but I barely register it. My mind drifts to another life, another version of me.
Delta Force.
Back when this kind of work had rules, uniforms, and men standing beside me who spoke the same language of violence and restraint. Back when the lines were clearer, even if the cost was higher. We moved as units then. Trusted the man to your left and the one to your right with your life without thinking twice.
Back before one mission went sideways. Bad intel and worse decisions, leading everything to unravel all at once.
I remember the heat first—the dirt grinding into my skin as I hit the ground hard, and the sound of gunfire too close,too chaotic.Men shouting over comms that cut in and out, voices overlapping until they blurred into noise.
Then the screaming. Someone was hit, then someone else, orders shouted, then contradicted. The moment when I realized the extraction window was gone and we were on our own. I remember bleeding into the dirt, pressure useless against a wound that wouldn’t stop, listening to the radio dissolve into static one voice at a time.
Dead comms. Dead men. That was the day everything broke.
I blink, grounding myself in the present as the water continues to run. That was a lifetime ago. I walked away after that—from the flags, command structures, and medals that didn’t mean a damn thing when it counted.
Now I work alone on private contracts—off-the-books solutions for problems governments pretend not to see. A gun for hire, if you want to strip it down to something ugly and simple.
The truth is, I don’t care what they call me. I care that the job gets done.
I shut the water off and step out of the shower, reaching for a towel and dragging it over my head. Droplets slide down my back, tracing the lines of ink and scar alike, disappearing as I dry off.
I step out of the shower and sit on the edge of the bed with a towel slung low around my hips, phone in my hand, watching condensation slide down the cheap window as planes lift off in the distance. Each one disappears into the low cloud cover within seconds, swallowed whole, leaving nothing behind but sound.
That’s how it should be.
I wait until my breathing is even before making the call to my handler. The line connects on the third ring.
“Report.”
His voice is calm and neutral, the kind that doesn’t ask questions unless it already knows the answers.
“Mission incomplete.”
There’s a pause. Not long, but long enough. “You aborted.”
“Yes.”
